BUG REPORT: Latest ZFS update borks grub

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1

I got a slew of updates, so I just installed all of them... on reboot, it took a long time to enumerate the drives; the Grub menu was so slow to display that you could literally watch it print out on the screen line-by-line (and there was a weird flying character that went left-to-right each time the timer counted down, and it counted down from 30 seconds, rather than the 10 seconds I have set); changing the selected Grub menu entry was super laggy; the boot had a few errors; and after the machine was booted, the EFI partition (the first partition on SDA) wouldn't auto-mount (but I could manually mount it).

I reverted, and tried again... same thing. So I reverted again and installed everything except the ZFS updates (which are):

 - Command-line tools to manage OpenZFS filesystems (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - OpenZFS Event Daemon (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - OpenZFS filesystem library for Linux (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - OpenZFS pool library for Linux  (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - OpenZFS root filesystem capabilities for Linux - initramfs  (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - OpenZFS test infrastructure and support scripts (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - Solaris name-value library for Linux (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - Solaris userland utility library for Linux (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)
 
 - Wrapper for libzfs_core C library (0.8.3-1ubuntu12.16)

I'm currently installing the above one-by-one to further isolate the problem. I'll report back.

[UPDATE]
Install one, and the rest are pulled in... so I can't do a one-by-one troubleshooting to winnow down the scope of the problem. Oh, well... the update seems to be a minor one dealing with how IPv6 is handled by ZFS, and I don't use IPv6, so I'll just forego these updates until the next iteration.

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2

It is good you share your experiences with ZFS, but you know me, its Ext4 or nothing! :wink:

3

I was able to narrow the scope of the problem, and found that it's actually two problems!

I installed zfs-test because I wanted to be able to clear the ZFS ARC cache.

Doing so pulled in:

  • Command-line tools to manage OpenZFS filesystems
  • OpenZFS filesystem library for Linux
  • OpenZFS pool library for Linux
  • OpenZFS test infrastructure and support scripts
  • Solaris name-value library for Linux
  • Solaris userland utility library for Linux
  • Wrapper for libzfs_core C library

Which left only the following uninstalled:

  • OpenZFS Event Daemon
  • OpenZFS root filesystem capabilities for Linux - initramfs

I rebooted to see if the problem recurred... the Grub menu worked alright, but there were many boot errors and the EFI partition wouldn't auto-mount again. That's problem #1.

So, knowing that I could easily revert, I installed the remaining two updates:

  • OpenZFS Event Daemon
  • OpenZFS root filesystem capabilities for Linux - initramfs

And the Grub menu was messed up again. That's problem #2.

I reverted again.

4

Interestingly, on the ZorinOS 16 installer you have the option to use ZFS but it's labeled as experimental. In the ZorinOS 17 installer you have that option as well but nothing says it's experimental, so it may have much better support.

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